How to Get a Girlfriend with Connell Barrett - How Shy Robbie Got 5 Numbers in 3 Hours! Steal This Move for Fearless Approaching

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Robbie, 26, is a shy software engineer who had never approached a woman in a bar—until one Friday night when dating coach Connell Barrett taught him the Hero Approach. It’s a bold move you make to start a night that unlocks authentic confidence. Three hours later, Robbie had collected 5 phone numbers. “I’m in god mode,” he said at one point. In this episode, you’ll learn how to use the Hero Approach to fearlessly meet women anywhere!Highlights of this Episode:04:47: Meet Robbie, Who Battled Approach Anxiety and Self-Doubt07:10: The Hero Approach: The Game-Changing Move to Unlock Confidence09:35: “Approach Her or I’ll Put You in a Headlock”—Coach Connell Gets Tough12:00: Robbie Reaches “God Mode” and Gets 5 Phone Numbers15:03: Three Approaching Myths DestroyedBOOK A FREE CONSULT CALL WITH DATING COACH CONNELL BARRETT TO LEARN ABOUT HIS 1-on-1 COACHING: http://www.datingtransformation.comEMAIL CONNELL AND HE WILL SEND YOU A FREE COPY OF HIS BESTSELLING BOOK, “DATING SUCKS BUT YOU DON’T”: [e-mail]

You're going to go approach them in five seconds or less. If you don't, I'm going to put you in a headlock. I'm going to walk over to these three women with you under my elbow in the headlock. And I'm going to say to them, hi, this is my friend Robbie. He wanted to talk to you, but he was afraid. Welcome back to the How to Get a Girlfriend podcast. I'm your host, dating coach Connell Barrett. I'm here to help you confidently meet and approach some incredible women

and do it with authenticity, make sparks happen, get some dates, become a fearless flurter, a fearless approacher. And this is an emergency podcast episode. I am recording this a couple of days after what just happened Friday night. One of my clients went out with me and a few other clients here in New York City. And he had the most incredible night. His name is Robbie. I watched a young man, 24, introverted, shy in his head about being unattractive to women,

5-7, brown, Indian, feeling like he's not good enough. I watched this young man go into God mode. He became fearless. And I want to tell you exactly how he did it. I want to tell you exactly how he got five, either five or six phone numbers. He approached 14 women, got five phone numbers, and was absolutely the lord of the club, the lord of the bar. How did he do it?

Well, one Friday and every month, the last Friday and every month, I do what I call Fearless Friday, the night of 100 approaches, where five, six, maybe seven clients and I go out for a fun, bonus freebie night out. And I just helped them approach lots of girls. And the idea is that we're moving toward fearlessness and trying to get to 100 total approaches. I even have a little ticker, a little hand tally, I think it's called, a little device that I click to try to get to 100. Now, the goal here is not to literally get to 100. It's to be ready to talk to 100 women.

But I'll tell you what, Robbie got to 14, 15 by himself. Then you got a fistful of phone numbers, even though at the beginning of the night, he was petrified. He was anxious. Let me tell you a little bit about Robbie, and I'll bet you have the same dating goals he has. So Robbie came to me. He's 24.

He works in the finance world. He's a software expert, does computer and tech stuff for a financial company. By the way, Robbie is not his real name, but he's a very real young man. and he came to me because he just really wanted to approach girls and maybe you're like Robbie maybe you've seen a beautiful woman at the bar or a group of girls at the bar or that really cute girl at the gym or that perfect 10 shopping at the grocery store and you wanted to go talk to her but you didn't you probably know that feeling right where you say oh wow she's amazing look at her I'm not sure what's

to say, maybe I'll go in a second. I'll have one more drink and then I'll go talk to her. Yeah, give me 10 more seconds. I'll do it. But that second never comes. Before you know it, another day, another week, another month has passed and you just have not approached any women. And that was Robbie. That was Robbie. He came to me with some very specific issues. Here's some things he said to me on our very first conversation. He said, Connell, I see a really cute girl and I think, oh she won't be into me you're out of her league you're too short you're too brown women want tall white guys women want better looking guys i'm not good enough and i said well okay how does that feel what's it feel going through life feeling that way about yourself and he said i'm looking at

my notes here there's a hole in my chest and heart i'm just not enough I'm too brown. I'm too boring. I'm just not what women want in it. And there's a hole in my chest and heart. He had never approached a girl in his whole life, at least not a really pretty girl. He was attracted to. And he even told me a story about once the closest he ever came to approaching a girl. Was it a grocery store? He had a crush on a woman who worked, works at a grocery store he goes to. And he told me that, I'm looking at my notes here, that he never actually talked to her. What he did is he wrote her a little note, like a detailed note telling her she's pretty, she's cute. He put his phone number on the note and handed it to her and then

ran away without actually opening his mouth and talking to her, hoping that she would text him. she never did so that's robbie okay so that's the context for friday night great guy great kid just struggling with the problem of approaching anxiety feeling he's not good enough not sure what to say and just feeling like he's just not tall or good looking enough so here we are it's fearless friday and i'm going out for my monthly night out with my guys it was a big night. There were nine guys. Plus my girlfriend, Jess. She comes out and plays wing women for us. So there's nine of us here in New York City at a place called the Houston Hall in New York City. It's a big beer hall, kind of like a beer garden. And my job on Fearless Fridays is to just

get these guys out approaching, help them face their fear. And I always start the Fearless Friday nights by doing the first couple of approaches for them. I want my clients to see me taking action. So I literally walked up to two or three women started to take action just because, hey, if I can't do it, why the hell are they paying me? Right? And anyway, so I approached a couple girls and then I say, all right, guys, it's your turn. A couple of the other gentlemen start taking some action, which is awesome. And there's Robbie standing there, sweating, nervous hands, stuck in his head. And I looked at him and I said, okay, I know what he needs. He doesn't need 17 clever lines, and he didn't need the perfect opener.

I knew exactly what he needed, or at least I suspected. I said, he needs what I call the hero approach. What is the hero approach? Well, the hero approach is your big takeaway for this episode. I'm going to teach you the hero approach. This is going to make approaching women so easy for you. This is going to be 20 times more valuable than any person. pickup lines, any opening lines, I or anybody else can teach you. What's the hero approach? It's

simple. When you go out at night or day, but in this case, it's a Friday night out. When you go out, you begin your night of socializing with women. You start with the scariest, hardest approach you can find. No dipping your toes in the water. No easing in and splashing a little bit of water on your chest to get used to it. No, you dive into the ice cold water. You burn the boats to mix metaphors. The burning boats are in the cold water. I call this the hero approach. And essentially, this is what I wanted Robbie to do. So here we are in Houston Hall. And I take Robbie under my wing, literally. I put my hand over his shoulder. I say, hey, over here. Look around. us what looks like the most intimidating approach here in the whole room and he looked around there

were three girls dancing about 10 feet away from us they were just doing their own thing they were jamming they were dancing to to whatever the music that was playing so i said cool let's start there go in go talk to them and he froze he said okay okay um give me 30 seconds i said no go now do it out my clicker. And I said, here we go. We got a hundred approaches to get to. Let's go, baby. He's like, okay, give me a second. I'll do it in a second. And I said, go now. He said, can I get a drink first? I said, fuck yourself. No. Do it now. And he said, okay, okay, I'll do it in a second. And he's standing there. And he's literally seven feet away from these three women. These women don't know he exists. They're just dancing. They're just three girls at a bar on a Friday night in New York

city. I said, go. He said, okay, I'll do it in a second. He's putting it off. He's putting it off. And then I dropped the bomb. I said, here's what's going to happen. You're going to go approach her and approach them in five seconds or less. If you don't, I'm going to put you in a headlock. I'm going to walk over to these three women with you under my elbow in the headlock. And I'm going to say to them, hi, this is my friend Robbie. He wanted to talk to you. But he was afraid. So he laughs. I said so.

Your choice. Do you want me to approach them with you in a headlock or do you want to do it like a man? And he said, okay, I'll go. And he walks over. He crosses the threshold. And he walks over and it didn't look great. He was stiff. He was kind of like hunched over.

He gave them way too much space. In other words, he didn't look like he. owned the space, but he did look at them in the eye. And he said, hi, what's up? I'm Robbie. I like your dance moves. And they smiled. They laughed.

And they chatted with him for about 45 seconds. Now, he did not get a phone number. He did not get a makeout. I don't have some amazing success story for these three women. But you know what happened is he had his hero approach. He faced the thing he was afraid of. which is what heroes do. And he came through the other end and realized, that wasn't so bad.

He came back to me and said, that was easier than I thought. It went okay. And I said, yeah. And then I said, okay, now do another one. Now the second one, I barely even had to persuade him. He immediately walked over to another two women sitting at a bench. They were seated. He stood.

His posture was better. He was more loose. and all of a sudden he talked to those two girls that they smiled they were very conversational and friendly with him and that went really really well that was approach number two and then came approach number three really cute girl sitting with her friend they were playing um this it was board game night on friday night at houson hall they were playing jenga or you know game game game game game they were playing jenga and he walks over and he calls over and he cracks a joke about the Jenga Tower. He says something about, oh, my God, looks like the

leaning tower of Pisa. It's pretty funny. Not bad, anyway. And he sits down, chats with them for five minutes. He comes back and he holds his phone up and he said, got my first number. And he had this beaming look on his face. Beaming look on his face. And the rest of the night, he was in flow state. He was in approaching. Flow State. There's a famous book called Flow, F-L-O-W, by Mihaili Chick-Sent Mejai. I can't even spell it, but it's an amazing book about how our psychology is wired to get into flow states in certain parts of life. And that's what I want you to know about today. I want you to know that if you want to go out and confidently approach women,

best advice I can give you is not to give you a bunch of perfect, scripted, planned lines. Women don't really care all that much what you say. What women care about is that you are bringing a fun, positive, authentic flow state to them, good emotions, and you're doing it as yourself. You're not trying to be somebody you're not. You're being yourself. You're being real. You're being your authentic, what I call radically authentic.

And I watched Robbie go from his doubtful, oh, I'm 5-7, I'm Indian, I'm a nerd, to what I call the higher self, which is just him. He's not a god, but he's also not a doubtful, unattractive loser. He's just Robbie. He's a great kid, young man, I should say, smart, very, very, very. charismatic when he gets out of his head and gets in the zone he's funny he's cracking jokes he's warm and women loved meeting him so by the end and we and then we moved to a different location we switched the night the fearless Friday night of a hundred approaches we switched from Houston hall to a place called the brass monkey a three level cool uh kind of like elevated dive

in the Greenwich Village. And we're on the rooftop of Brass Monkey. Fearless Friday continues. I'm with my girlfriend, Jess. I'm helping other guys approach girls. And then I look over and I see my man, Ravi, he is talking to a dynamite cute blonde and her dynamite cute brunette friend,

probably early 20s. Way too young for me. I'm the oldest guy in the rooftop. by far. But I'm watching Ravi just absolutely crushing with them. They're giggling. They're eating out of his hand. And he got both of their numbers. And he comes back to me, holds his phone up and says, 14 approaches, coach, five numbers, 14 approaches. And basically, he got 14 percent of the way to the 100 approach goal just by himself. He was absolutely incredible. And again, he's 5'7. he's not great looking or at least he's not like male model good looking i think he's a handsome

kid but he's not like some male model just a regular tech software nerd and um he was absolutely stunning he was so good that my friend and sometimes client zach was there my trainer and um a couple other people i said i want and and i took the other guys i said hey everybody look at robbie's face. He was talking to the cute blonde and the cute brunette. Look at his face. Look at the confidence, the focus, the sly little smile. He's in the moment. He's not planning what he's saying. He's just speaking authentic real thoughts. And women just loved his energy. And I'm going to give you the three biggest myths that you need to know about approaching and attracting women to through approaching.

Here are the three biggest myths, or arguably the three biggest myths, that Robbie perfectly demonstrated or just BS. Myth number one is that you have to be tall, handsome, and charismatic to have some approaching and having women into you. Wrong. Robbie's 5'7, average-looking, or at least not like male model. He's got a nice face, nice eyebrows, but he's just an average-looking. looking guy, but he lit up the room. Women were so into his energy. He was absolutely

unstoppable. I had another client who approached those same girls, and he didn't do that well. He got kind of pushed back, knocked back, rejected, you might call it. Not because of anything wrong with him. A guy who's better looking, I would argue, got rejected because women are not really that concerned about your looks. Looks are fine. Nice bonus if you have them. They want confident energy, they want warmth, they want genuineness, and they want a man who knows how much he offers. So you don't have to be some tall, handsome, charismatic guy to approach women. Myth number two, you need the perfect line.

You've got to say the right thing, right? Nope. I only gave Robby one thing to say the whole night. The very first approach he did, I believe I gave him something sort of his training wheels to help him have that hero approach moment and other than that I didn't give him anything to say he was just walking up to women speaking his thoughts making chit-chat on a bar so you don't need some perfect line pickup lines are overrated you can walk up to a woman and just say hi I'm Robbie what's up and the right words will come to you so authenticity beats

planned lines every time in my book. And the third myth I want to bust for you is not the biggest of all, but a big one, which is this false story that people always cling to, which is women don't want you to approach them. It's creepy. It's wrong to approach them, at least in 2025. Well, tell that to the 14 women who Robbie met. Sorry, the 14 approaches he did.

He did 14 individual approaches, which means he talked to probably 22, 23 women. He did not have a single, quote, unquote, rejection, at least not that he reported to me. He didn't have any women say, go away. We don't want to talk to you. Every woman was receptive. Every woman's response was somewhere between polite, fairly positive, to damn attracted to this kid. and so yeah if you think women don't want to be approached in 2025 well you should have been on the rooftop bar at the brass monkey last Friday with me and the guys because there were about

200 people on the rooftop and Robbie and my guys were talking to half of them and they were doing great so the bottom line is not every woman wants a guy to approach her but so many women especially women who are out on a Friday night they're absolutely more than open into a confident good dude. And bottom line is Robbie just went through this amazing transformation. Think of where he started. He was handing creepy little sorry notes to women who stock groceries at the grocery store. Hey, here's a note.

Text me if you want to date me. By the way, I'm not judging it. I did the same thing. I once left the creepiest note. I gave a crew, not, I wasn't trying to be creepy, but I left a note to this cute girl who worked at Starbucks. I wrote it on my business card. Hi, I'm Connell. I've been noticing you and you seem nice and, you know, text me, email me if you want to go on a date. Ew. So, anyway, I did the same thing. And Robbie was doing that kind of stuff. And now he is God mode, rolling up to women.

feeling amazing so by the end of the night robbie was just a different guy um standing taller more confident louder but just being so relatable and real nothing planned just very natural very natural and i remember i had the same thing happened to me once i remember when i discovered the hero approach the hero approach it was man 17 years ago i'm in a club in East London working with one of my early coaches. And he said, Connell, start the night out, find the hardest opening approach you can do. So he takes me to this dance floor in the east end of London. Three or four gorgeous, cute, skinny, blonde London chicks are dancing together. I thought there's no way I can talk to them. I walked up. I forced myself to do it. They rejected me, but they weren't

brutal about it they were just like hey we're dancing not now nothing bad happened and i remember thinking i felt like a hero afterwards i started with the hard approach first and something amazing happened i was almost fearless after that one or two approaches later instant make out with a very cute british woman uh yeah and i never would have approached that second or third girl fearlessly had I not approached, had I not done the hero approach on the dance floor. So here's what I want you to do. I want you to let go of this false story that you can't approach women because you can. I want you to reject this false story that you have to say the perfect thing.

What you say doesn't matter as long as what you say makes sense in English. I mean, don't speak gibberish, but the words don't matter. what you need to do go out for the go out for a night this weekend here's your mission should you choose to accept it don't just listen to this podcast use it to take action if you just listen to information nothing will happen but if you take this information i'm giving you today and turn it into action you can have your hero moment you can grab phone numbers you can grab dates and here's what you do you do exactly what robbie did last week you go out you You notice who's around you and you say, all right, what's the most intimidating, scariest,

approach situation, you know, two or three women by themselves talking to each other, boom, go in. Now don't approach a woman who's like clearly with a guy. Don't do that. I'm not going to go that crazy that far. I don't want you to literally approach a girl who's making out with her boyfriend or clearly on a date. but otherwise, look for difficult, scary situations. You know, two or three women together, two or three women seated with their backs to you,

maybe women on the dance floor, absolutely. And you want to just look around the room and say, what is an intimidatingly scary situation? Or maybe it's just a beautiful woman who's so gorgeous, stylish, that you think, oh, my God, I could never date somebody like that. She's way out of my league. That's where you want to go. Follow your fear.

Think of fear as the winds of a sailboat. And follow the wins. Let the fear send you toward where the fear is because that's where the value is for you. So you go out and you start the night with your hero approach. Start with the hardest one. And then it'll go however it goes. and it might not go quote-unquote well in terms of a phone number or a date. In fact, it's not supposed to.

It's just designed to help shock your psychology back into reality. And you realize, wait a minute, I can talk to anybody I want. There's nothing to be afraid of. Worst case scenario, she doesn't want to talk to me. And then all of a sudden, so much of that fear dissolves, just like it did for Robbie. Let's go back to that first approach he did. In his brain, he was afraid of something. He was afraid of, get away, weird brown guy.

He was afraid of, ew, you're ugly and short and you're disgusting. None of those things happened. Women just smiled and said, oh, hey, what's up? Hi, we're dancing, blah, blah, blah. And then basically, he essentially walked into the lion's den and realized there's no lions here. He had his whip, he had his chair. I'm so afraid. And then he got into the lion's den and realized there's no lions.

There's just some kitty cats. Just kitties. Nothing to be afraid of. And that's what you're going to feel, too. That's the hero approach. What does a hero do? A hero takes action in spite of fear, spite of resistance. A hero takes action because there are obstacles, not in spite of them.

because they're there. That's what the hero approach is. So you're going to go out this weekend, do your hero approach as the very first approach of the night, and notice how different you feel afterwards. If she, quote, rejects you, fine. It's supposed to happen. You're supposed to get rejected with the hero approach. It's the point, actually. Now, you might actually get a surprisingly good reaction, which is a nice bonus. But if you don't, that's what's supposed to happen. So you go out do that first one. And then the second one, the third one, you're going to notice how much easier it is to go talk to women because that big bad wolf that you're afraid of didn't bite you. So go do your hero approach. Start with the hardest one first. And then do the second one,

then do the third one. I would say you want to do a minimum of six approaches for you to get the benefit of the hero approach. Be able to get enough action happening. so you can get into a flow state. So that's your mission. Notice what I didn't tell you to do. I didn't give you anything to say. I don't care what you say. You don't know what to say?

Walk up to a woman and say, hi. I don't know what to say. Connell, this guy on a podcast told me to go talk to you. Here I am. Say that. Seriously, women don't care. All they care about is that a good man like you is talking to them. Just like all those women on Friday night cared about was,

hey, we like this guy. Guy Ravi. He's fun. He's in the zone. He's bringing good energy. So, yeah. So this is, approaching is such a different beast than other areas of life. But if I had to make some comparisons, it'd be like, this is like, dive into the cold pool and start swimming right away. Don't warm up. That's the way to get the water to warm up. Okay. it's almost like you're starting off with a 200-pound bench press instead of warming up your muscles. Now, I don't recommend that in the gym. That's probably bad to do.

I don't know. I'll ask my trainer. But this is the hero approach is going to change your approaching life. It's the fastest way for you to start getting some approaching results. And to not just meet women out in the real world, but to do it fearlessly. Robbie was fearless by the end of the night. He was transformed. It was beautiful.

I hadn't seen something so incredible in a while from a client. So thank you, Robbie, for being a hero. I want you to go out there and be your own approaching hero. And I will end with a simple call to action if you go out and approach women or even if you don't. And you want to learn how to do it from me one-on-one. I coach men in real life, both in person but also by remote. And you can book a free consult with me to find out, how does this whole dating coaching thing work? How do I work with Connell?

How do I go out with him in person? Or how do I get him to give me some approaching missions, just like he did Robbie? Just go to my website, datingtransformation.com, and book a free call with me. In the meantime, go be a hero. go do the hero approach. It would be amazing. And I will talk to you next time. Thanks for listening.